OPINION:
New Twitter owner Elon Musk just called out The Associated Press for “misinformation” after the news organization posted a tweet conflating fact with opinion, with the apparent intent of convincing readers of the dangers and security threats the platform’s new atmosphere of free speech is bringing to the world.
“Misinformation” — it’s Donald Trump’s “fake news” label, in a word. And as the press and their friends in the Democrat Party hate Trump, so, too, the press and their friends in the Democrat Party will soon hate Musk.
Leftists hate anything they can’t control and ultimately conquer.
From The Associated Press, its official @AP account tweet: “New Twitter owner Elon Musk said he is granting ‘amnesty’ for suspended accounts, which online safety experts predict will spur a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation.”
That was the opening line of AP’s own “Musk says granting ‘amnesty’ to suspended Twitter accounts” story from this week.
Musk, in his own @elonmusk tweet, replied: “AP is such an expert in misinformation. Twitter couldn’t hope to compete!”
Quite right. He’s absolutely correct.
The best “misinformation” experts, after all, mask their propaganda in barely noticeable ways. Take the art of conflation, for example. The AP could’ve just as easily reported Musk’s announced “amnesty” would, according to constitutional experts, spur a rise in free speech and healthy debates that could spread Western ideals of liberty around the world; or would, according to medical experts, spur a rise in publicly permitted scientific exploration that could inspire Americans’ trust in their health bureaucrats once again; or would, according to political science experts, spur critical thinking and truthful discussion of the perils of allowing China to influence U.S. policies and culture and commit human rights abuses, so that in the end, the communist enabling forces might be outed from Congress and the White House and the power might return to the people.
The AP could’ve gone neutral and simply stuck with bare-bone facts.
Instead, the AP went for the jugular on free speech. And all in a nameless, anonymous, “safety experts” say sort of way.
Who are these online safety experts? Read the story and the question mark remains. At one point, AP writes that “groups that monitor the platform for racist, anti-Semitic and other toxic speech say it’s been on the rise” on Twitter since Musk bought the platform; at another point, AP notes the resignation of Musk critic Yoel Roth, the site’s former head of trust and safety, has fueled the fall of Twitter “into a chaos of uncontrolled speech.” But still: Who’re the “safety experts” to whom AP refers and of whom AP bases its predictions of rising hate speech and harassment? Keep reading.
“A report from the European Union,” AP wrote, “said Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it this year compared with 2021.”
Only globalists and elites care what the European Union has to say. Only globalists and elitists and journalists trying as best as they can to ding Musk and drive out his free speech intents for Twitter, apparently. It’s an uphill battle, and the slope grows steeper.
“Hate speech impressions down by 1/3 from pre-spike levels,” Musk tweeted just this week.
Oops. Hmm. There’s that nasty f-word — fact — once again. It’s back to the drawing board at ye olde AP, it seems.
Musk hasn’t only hit at AP for “misinformation.” As Fox News reported, he’s called out Business Insider as “not a real publication” for reporting falsely about holdings at Twitter. He’s called out Semafor for reporting falsely on the same matter. He’s suspended the left’s beloved comedian Kathy Griffin for impersonating him on Twitter. He shortly after reinstated her account; reinstated her right to exercise free speech on the social media platform. That’s more than a former Twitter owner would’ve done for a conservative of Griffin’s comedic ilk. This is the same Kathy Griffin who was, under a different owner and amidst a different social media atmosphere of 2017, still allowed to use Twitter, still allowed to keep her Twitter account, all the while posting a gruesome photo of herself holding a fake bloodied head of Trump — a photo she again retweeted in 2020.
That social media leans left is hardly a news flash.
That social media is beginning to be a free speech zone is news flashy.
That the new owner of Twitter, Musk, is actually using his platform to call out the leftist haters of free speech and yes, mock them, scoff them, even attack them — that’s a thunderbolt.
Trump felt the force of that thunderbolt for shaming the purveyors of fake news as fake news. It won’t be long before Musk finds himself facing the same assaults from the left for calling out their expertise as “misinformation.”
This is good news for America; a great situation for American liberties.
It means the news industry may soon be undergoing a much needed purge. The message for the newsrooms of tomorrow? Socialists, communists, collectivists, Marxists, that is to say, any “expert in misinformation” need not apply.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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